One theme of fear that has nagged at me in the past six years is; I don’t belong.
I don’t match, I don’t fit in, I am different, I am at odds with those around me. I stand out; I walked away, leaving behind many.
I see them fitting together and me fitting out.
I see a flock of people being in life in harmony and then me, singing off tune.
The feeling inside was one of separation, loneliness, not belonging, forever standing on the fringe.
What I failed to do was take one more step back and see the completed picture.
My focus has been on the group, not on me, my view is from this odd angle of group mentality.
Understandably so, for I was raised to be a group member, but not an individual and I excelled at this.
I was a superior group member, outstanding in blending in, merging my life into the group, that I simply disappeared.
Each time I felt the separation I felt lonely and not whole and grew smaller and smaller.
I seemed to disappear from their life while my own life seemed to loom larger and larger.
If you could see me from both views, you would see me growing fainter in their light but if you stood on my side you could see me growing bigger and brighter.
My success or failure depends on where you are standing.
If you are expecting me to return and become a group member, you will see me fading, growing weaker and farther away.
And if you jump over to the side of individual your view will totally change.
You will see a person standing up for her own feelings, her own passions and truths, a separated soul finding its own self worth.
I too fall victim to the group view, to see me in their eyes and each time I do, I feel less.
However, when I stand inside myself and witnessed my life from the inside out, I feel my uniqueness and my independence of free will.
A group no longer owns me.
As a child I was taught to give up my body, my feelings, my life and my individual stakes for a group called family, which was governed by religion and undermined by abuse.
They took ownership of me piece by piece.
Or I gave them pieces of me little by little, believing the more I gave the more I would become.
I gave til I was gone.
It has taken me a long while to remove the sense of self from the views of a group and see myself within my self, to feel my self as self.
To weigh and measure myself by my own ruler, to no longer feel my value is defined by the Ruler of the group.
This separated wholeness I see of me outside the group is to see and feel something I am not familiar with, a self beyond the group.
My favorite image or saying is, “I am going to go find myself, and I don’t know who I am or even that I am missing…”
I had no idea who I was separated from a group.
I had no individual view of self.
I was nothing out side alone.
My whole composition of self was defined by their needs of me.
My fear of being alone was that alone I am nothing.
I recall being scared spit less to the point of frozen immobility, to be naked without a group.
The group I had woken up in was filled with filth, untruths, lies and cover-ups, forgiveness of sins, a mess.
It was me!
The group looked liked me, talked like me, walked like me, it was a direct reflection, a bird with the same feathers.
There was no dividing line between it and me.
I found me, lost, brainwashed, blind, abused, broken, confused, mental…I was upside down and tilted away from reality.
It’s denial and mine were equal.
My long walk back to find myself and see myself in reality has not been an easy road, but one that has set me free to stand alone belonging to me.
Isn’t it funny I found myself exactly as I felt, Lost but not knowing I was missing?
